“You signed those reports stating that the business was all right. Of course you must have seen those foreign concerns with your own eyes, otherwise you’d have no right to affix your name to the technical reports that were used to win our confidence....”
Yes, it was quite plain to Torre Bianca that all these people were going to look for someone who was still alive on whom to throw all the odium of a scandalous confidence-game, since Fontenoy had eluded them.
“Manuel,” he said that evening to his friend, “I’m scared! And the worst of it is that now I myself can’t understand why I signed those accursed reports! They didn’t seem to me so particularly important.... How could I possibly have such blind faith in what Fontenoy was doing?”
Robledo smiled sadly. He knew who was responsible for this “blind faith”; but he concluded that it would be cruel to add to his friend’s distress by giving him his views on that subject.
Even in the midst of his tormenting anxieties Torre Bianca was thinking more of his wife’s distress than of his own.
“Poor Elena! I’ve just been up to talk to her.... She nearly collapsed when I told her I had seen Fontenoy this morning.... The whole thing has been such a shock that her nerves are all unstrung.”
Robledo grew impatient of his friend’s concern for Elena’s health. He broke out brusquely—
“You’d better think about your own situation and stop bothering about your wife. You’ve got more than a matter of ‘nerves’ to face.”
Little by little as they discussed the affair, both men began to feel more hopeful. Familiarity with misfortune invariably robs it of its terrors! There was no need, they decided, to despair, until the banker’s affairs had been thoroughly investigated. Fontenoy was far more of a visionary than a crook, even his worst enemies admitted it. And it was more than likely that some of the enterprises he had planned and started would turn out to be good investments. He had been wrong of course in trying to hurry them up, and in giving the public to understand that they were far more developed and remunerative than they actually were. But a few competent managers could find a way to make them productive; and that would justify Fontenoy’s statements, and prove that Torre Bianca had done nothing out of the way in signing them in his capacity of engineering expert.
“Yes, perhaps it will all be straightened out,” said Robledo, who felt that it was wise to cheer up his friend as much as possible. Torre Bianca’s distress of mind had considerably alarmed him, and he believed that only by recovering a certain amount of confidence in himself could he face the immediate future. The man needed to think clearly, and for that he must have a good night’s rest!